Barry, Barry, Quite Contrary

Yeah, that's a stupid title. I am certainly disappointed by Larkin's second omission from the Hall, but what can you expect from a bunch of dinosaurs who think they're important because they paid some money to get a piece of paper so they could call themselves "journalist." Pbbbbbbt...

I am still reeling from the shootings in Arizona yesterday. This is a result of today's media. Spew vitriol, criticize, condemn, and damn the consequences. Ok, so the omission of a player of a stupid game from some museum in the middle of nowhere is trivial. I know this. But the holier-than-thou attitude that many journalists and broadcasters have these days - whether it be in sports or politics or whatever - is the same.

What am I getting at? Well, I've just seen some of the columns from BBWAA folks about why they chose who they chose as if Abraham were writing their words on stone tablets. (Stone tablets eventually break.) It's the same mentality as those folks on the cable news channels who think they're so holy that they can say whatever they want and the seas will part for them. They're so enamored with the sound of their own words that they can't see how they have degraded society, and in the case of the political journalists, the consequences of their arrogance has resulted in a grand tragedy.

And how many times have we said this would happen, that this will happen, that people will die because of the vitriolic political environment that corporate media have created? But no one listens - they say it's liberal hysteria. Well, we told you so, and it will happen again if things don't change. Journalist used to be a noble profession. I live in a city where it still matters, where Tom Friedman was actually a good journalist, where people who wrote for newspapers risked their lives so they could tell the truth about what was going on, where many died for that truth. But in America, we have cable news and columnists and bloggers who just want an audience.

Ah, truth. What a word. "What is truth?" Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ at his trial. The truth is, the American media have collected their 30 pieces of silver.

Oh, wait, I was talking about Larkin. Well, sometimes baseball just doesn't matter. This is one of those times. It feels like someone has reached into my chest and squeezed my heart to a pulp.

Until next week...